The 5 Characteristics of Play

I've been searching for articles online and came across a book written in 1938 by a Dutch historian and cultural theorist, Johan Huizinga. In his book "Homo Ludens" (Man the Player) he defines five characteristics of play. Though this text is dated, I thought his points were interesting since I don't think we've come up with our own definition of play.

1. Play is free, is in fact freedom
2. Play is not "ordinary" or "real" life
3. Play is distinct from "ordinary" life both as to locality and duration
4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order absolute and supreme.
5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it

Something to think about...

P.S. see the wikipedia entry for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens

Schiller, Theory of Play and the Aesthetic

We’ve been discussing notions of play and the aesthetic, so I thought I’d post my understanding of Schiller’s theory of play, from his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.

Under the play drive, the sensuous drive and the form drive are united.

The sensuous drive looks for our experience of time to be filled with content; we expose ourselves to determination by things. To be determinable is to be alive, to expose ourselves to the world.

Under the form drive, we form things; what we wish is to bring about figures, suspend time. We seek an end to change, it is a state of determination.

Play is a way of uniting change and identity. In play we remain exposed to impressions that come to us from the world, and think ourselves. Play is the aesthetic state, we must dwell in the aesthetic state to experience beauty; beauty is a figure that has come alive (form + sensuous), and we are only able to relate to it through play.